Now any business can access the same type of AI that powered AlphaGo
A startup called CogitAI has developed a platform that lets companies use reinforcement learning, the technique that gave AlphaGo mastery of the board game Go.
Gaining experience: AlphaGo, an AI program developed by DeepMind, taught itself to play Go by practicing. It’s practically impossible for a programmer to manually code in the best strategies for winning. Instead, reinforcement learning let the program figure out how to defeat the world’s best human players on its own.
Drug delivery: Reinforcement learning is still an experimental technology, but it is gaining a foothold in industry. Amazon recently launched a reinforcement-learning platform, but it is aimed more at researchers and academics. CogitAI’s first commercial customers include those working in robotics for drug manufacturing. Its platform lets the robot figure out the optimal way to process drug orders.
Brain trust: CogitAI was founded by several smart AI experts, including Peter Stone, a professor at the University of Texas. Rich Sutton, one of the fathers of reinforcement learning, is an advisor.
Learn for life: Stone says CogitAI’s platform is also the first to incorporate the ability to apply what it has learned in one situation to a new one, a first step toward “lifelong learning” for AI programs. “The platform has all of the cutting-edge RL algorithms and then some of our steps toward continual learning,” he says.
For more on the world of AI, sign up here to our twice-weekly AI newsletter, The Algorithm.
Deep Dive
Artificial intelligence
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch
Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.
What’s next for generative video
OpenAI's Sora has raised the bar for AI moviemaking. Here are four things to bear in mind as we wrap our heads around what's coming.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.